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“£18.08/tonne from 1 April, the carbon tax is no joke”
For many, April Fool’s Day simply brought the annual opportunity for a bit of a laugh at the expense of others. But if the UK’s power generators found reason to laugh it would no doubt have been a little more wry, depending on how dark you like your humour.
The reason? The UK carbon tax once again ratcheted higher from the first of the month to shift market economics further against thermal generators, already struggling to adapt to a changing landscape.
From £9.55/tonne of carbon last year to £18.08 on 1 April 2015, the carbon tax is no joke.
Although the Treasury will freeze the burden at its current level until the end of the decade, the tax remains a bugbear on both sides of the decarbonisation debate. Those angling for green energy argue that forcing generators to pay higher costs (which are probably just passed on to the consumer) is no replacement for a hard and fast carbon cap, while for those on the dirtier side of the spectrum the cost is just one more debilitating Westminster-led intervention.
Might the much-discussed Longannet coal-fired plant, for example, have managed to shoulder its steep transmission charges if Scottish Power were only forced to pay the European Union’s carbon price through the Emissions Trading System?
Better, then, to be in the shoes of EDF Energy. Its 9GW nuclear fleet is squeaky clean in terms of carbon emissions and benefits from selling into a market in which prices rise every time the carbon tax does.
At least someone’s laughing.
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